Cray-1A (1976)
Accession Number: X1553.98 A-G
Gift of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories.

As Control Data Corporation grew aggressively into a major company on the basis of its supercomputer sales, its bureaucracy became onerous to Seymour Cray who, in 1972, left to start his own company. His venture, called Cray Research Inc., was founded in his hometown of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and had a modest staff of about 40 persons. Working in seclusion for four years, Cray introduced the Cray-1 supercomputer in 1976. Like all of Cray's machines, the Cray-1 was the fastest computer in the world at time of introduction. Speed was always Cray's prime design goal and, given large cold war defense budgets, funding was rarely an issue for typical CDC/Cray customers.

The Cray-1's unique physical design earned it the title of "the world's most expensive loveseat," a reference to the concentric bench that surrounds the main tower. This bench is functional as well as aesthetic since underneath it lies part of the machine's power supply and air conditioning system. The overall circular shape reveals a similar blend of practicality and symbolism: the shape allows wire lengths to be kept as short as possible, and architecting of memory and processing elements to be integrated both physically and logically. Viewed from above, the "C" shape also alludes to the Cray name. The machine was wired almost completely by hand and used a Freon cooling system. Monthly operating cost, including service contract, was approximately $100,000.